It's been how long????

Wow. I knew it had been awhile since I'd posted but I had no idea it had been over a year. It's been a busy one, and not all good things, but I do have so much to share!

Spinning has taken over my life. Every day I spend time either processing  fiber or spinning on my wheel. The most exciting thing ever is that I'm starting to find local fleeces! Not just sheep but alpaca and llama as well. I cannot express how exciting that is to me.

These are yarns I made right from start to finish. I scoured the fleeces, combed/carded, spun and finished them. This gives me happy feet. Such a feeling of accomplishment to be able to do all these things.

Here's the best piece of equipment I've bought recently. $30 second hand. Score!!!! I use this for the heat needed to melt the lanolin off the fleece. I can set the temperature to avoid boiling which would felt the fleece.

Working outside is kind of necessary since Hubby doesn't want the house smelling like sheep. I don't mind so much.

 Once it's all washed, I lay it on sweater racks and let it dry in the sun. Then it can come inside for the rest of the processing. So my goal before the freeze starts is to get all roughly 40lbs of raw fleece washed and in the house. Yeah, I kinda went over board on the fleece buying. But now I have tonnes to work with! Woohoo!

So over the next couple weeks we'll explore my epic adventure working with raw fleece.

Tail Spin Part 2

Okay, so let's finish preparing the fiber. The locks are obviously long so by using that same fiber as my base, I can keep it fairly thin. But I need the fibers going more or less the save direction. That's what hand carders are for. Basically, they're brushes for fiber. Here's mine...

So, you just simply dump a bunch of fiber on one card and start carding.

Uncombed but picked fiber

Combed you can see how the fibers lay more or less parallel.

Take the fibers off the cards. Normally you would roll them from the long side for woolen spinning, but I want them to be more worsted which means they lie in the same direction so I'll roll from the short end.

And voila! Faux roving to use as my base for tailspinning. To the wheel Batman!

So spin a few yards of just plain yarn, then lay out your individual locks for easy access since you'll be using both hands quite a bit.

Start by splitting your fiber up the middle, going for roughly in half. Make sure you have over-twisted a bit to make the next steps easier.

Pick up a lock, bringing the tail forward over your finger and press it up between the fibers, holding the back section firmly in that hand. Now use your other hand to wrap that tail around the front section of the fiber...

...like this. I do this because it secures the tail better without having to over-spin your yarn. The goal here is a nicely balanced tail spun yarn.

Now, flip the lock up parallel to your yarn and let the twist flow into both sections, securing the tail and taking out the extra twist you put in before placing the lock.

You can see here that its not really tight even though I am holding it with some tension.

Repeat until you run out of locks or patience, whichever comes first. Just remember the goal is pretty AND balanced. I don't hang weights on any of my yarns, they stand on their own merits and I'm getting close to perfectly balanced yarn with this method.

 

 

 

 

Tail spin

It's not what you think. There's a method of spinning fancy yarn and I'm obsessed with learning the technique. It's called 'extreme tailspinning' and trust me...it's extreme.

You start with the locks from a long wooled sheep, take those individual locks and spin just the tail of the lock into the base yarn, letting the lock hang free. It's spectacular. It's also really hard. Because you're spinning just the cut end of the lock into the yarn, it tends to get way overspun, so much that when you unwind the yarn from the bobbin, it kinks up into a tangled mess. So my challenge has been to spin the yarn without over spinning.

After a few attempts with some undyed locks, I finally got my head around it and figured out my own method. It takes some serious prep work so let me walk you through it.

First, I purchased a pack of locks from the local farmer's market.

It's hard to see in this picture but they're dyed some lovely autumn colors, golds and reds with some purples and blues. Very pretty and silky.

So when washing and dying locks, they don't all hold their shape. There's a certain amount of handling required and you end up with blobs of fiber. So the first step is to separate the locks from the fiber that didn't hold it's shape. The jumbled fiber I pick open into individual fibers for combing to use as my base yarn.

Here's a couple of locks on my knee. You can see the curly end on the right. This will hang down from the yarn. The fluffed out end on the left will be spun into the yarn

Here's a basket of locks ready for spinning. You can see the colors better. The entire process takes patience but since my patience with fiber is unlimited that's no problem for me.

 

All the fuzzy bits I put in a bag for carding to be the base yarn.

So in case you're curious, I've already been about an hour just on fiber preparation. And I'm not ready for spinning yet!

Stay tuned for the next stages of the process...

 

How much am I actually spending on yarn?

Hello, my name is Tammy and I'm a fiber addict. And not the cereal kind.

I love Blue Faced Leicester. I love Merino. I love silk. I love mohair. Camel. Yak. Angora. Mink!

Any kind of luxury fiber makes my little heart go pitty pat. Yes, I can hear the gasps at the thought of how much I actually spend on yarn. I'll admit it...a lot.

I could tell you stories about how natural fibers don't aggravate the psoriasis on my hands like acrylics do (true by the way), tell you I think I'm worth the indulgence (true again. Why work so hard if I can't indulge my hobby?). But the truth of the matter is...I'm an addict.

And nothing gets my blood pumping like a good deal on my favorite yarns.Sometimes the stars align and I get the good deals. Not often, I'm usually the one who buys just before something goes on sale for half price. But not this time heh heh.

Last week, I was haunting Discontinued Brand Name Yarns. It's a great site but because they're a liquidation site selection is always hit and miss. If you sign up for their email list they give you codes to save even more money! *happy dance*  This day, armed with my 33% off code, I was cruising the site and landed in the hand painted yarn category. I think my heart actually stopped for a beat or two when I saw Hand Maiden Marrakesh, a silk/camel blend. I didn't even notice the color, I just hit 'add to cart'.

Take a breath, it's all good. Then I saw Hand Maiden Silk Lace right beside it. O. M. G! Get the defibrillator! I couldn't hit 'add to cart' fast enough, wanted to scoop those before someone else saw them! Picture the seagulls in Finding Nemo...mine, mine, MINE!!!!!!!!

So now I had them in my cart. Whew. Still didn't know what colors they were, that part didn't register. But I added my discount code and needed revival again. $17 for the Marrakesh. Regular retail? $42. That's right, FORTY TWO DOLLARS!!!!! FOR SEVENTEEN!!! Already riding an adrenaline high, I checked the Lace Silk. $15. Regular retail? $40! I had to hold my happy dance to check out. Even with the shipping, which is more than reasonable, I still got these luxury skeins at HALF PRICE!!!!!! SCORE!!

I didn't think I'd ever come off the endorphin high because as anyone who knows me will tell you, I have a love affair with Hand Maiden yarns. We sneak around behind my husband's back so he doesn't know the true extent of our union. Me and Mini Maiden? That's a weekend rendezvous in Paris to me. 

So with my deal in the bag, now the came the hard part. Waiting for them to arrive. 

While I did, I became curious how my favorite yarns stacked up price wise to regular yarns available in places like Michael's and Hobby Lobby.

For those who don't know Hand Maiden is a Canadian Company. Check them out. They're awesome. They also do a more economical line called Fleece Artist. And by economical I don't mean cheaply made. Hand Maiden to Fleece Artist is like a BMW to a Cadillac. Both luxury cars, one's just way more fancy. That's what they're like.

So, I went to the Hobby Lobby site and looked up Kroy Sock Yarn. This is considered a good quality yarn, 75% wool, 25% nylon for long wearing. $5.99 for 1.75oz/166 yards. Sounds reasonable. High wool content...don't know what kind of wool and for non yarn geeks, the breed of the sheep does greatly effect the quality of the wool, but there is a high percentage. 

Popped over to Colorsong Yarn who only carry Hand Maiden/Fleece Artist yarns and looked up a similar sock yarn. Blue Faced Leicester Socks.  80% BFL wool/20% nylon for long wearing. Pretty close, although BFL wool? Is divine!!!! So soft and squishy you can't believe it's actually wool. I love it. But I digress...$19.95 for 4.06oz/355 yards.

At a quick look that seems very expensive compared to the Kroy, but let's break it down.

Kroy - .04 cents/yard, $3.42/oz

Fleece Artist - .06 cents/yard, $4.91/oz

In my head two cents a yard more for something that I won't just enjoy but will absolutely, crazy stalker love is worth the investment! And with the bigger skein from Fleece Artist you can do hats and shawls and mitts, oh my!

So as you can see, I've found a new way to validate my love of luxury fibers

Hello, my name is Tammy and I'm a fiber addict.

P.S. For the curious, the yarn arrived. Here's the colors... *drool*

P.P.S. Links for the curious:
            www.discontinuedbrandnameyarn.com
           colorsongyarn
           Hand Maiden Fine Yarns

Infinity Scarf Pattern

Well I promised my friends in my Crochet with Us! Facebook Group that I would post the pattern recipe for the Infinity Scarf I'm making so without further ado, here it is:

I used Hand Maiden Mini Maiden in Stardust, which is a wool/silk light fingering yarn that I won’t gush about right now or you’ll be reading all day, with an “F” (3.75mm) hook, but you can use any yarn and appropriate hook that you want. When in doubt, check the yarn label for a hook recommendation but remember that’s just a guide line. Be a rebel! Go up or down a size just to see what happens. Or be really crazy and change by 2 sizes. Heh heh. Damn the man! He can’t tell us rebel hookers what to do!

Pattern is easily customizable. Just chain a multiple of 11 + 4. Want it longer? Just keep stitching. Want it shorter? STOP! J

This is a simple two row repeat pattern. The only tricky stitches are front post double crochet (fpdc) and back post double crochet (bpdc). If you’ve never used either stitch, this is an excellent pattern to learn them and get comfortable with them.

Here we go:

Chain 37

Row 1:  3dc in the 4^th ch from hook, *sk next 2ch, (dc in next chain, ch 1, skip next ch) twice, dc in next ch, sk next 2 ch, 3dc in the next ch,** 3dc in the next ch, rep from * across ending last rep at **, dc in last ch, turn

Row 2:  Ch3 (counts as dc), sk 1^st dc, *3dc in next dc, sk next 2dc, bpdc around post of next dc, ch 1, sk next ch-1 sp, dc in next dc, ch 1, bpdc around the post of next dc, sk next 2dc, 3dc in dc, rep from * across to turning ch, dc in 3^rd ch of turning ch, turn

Row 3:  Ch3(counts as dc), sk 1^st dc, *3dc in next dc, sk next 2dc, fpdc around the post of the next dc, ch 1, sk next ch 1 sp, dc in next dc, ch 1, fpdc around the post of the next dc, sk next 2dc, 3dc in next dc, rep from * across to turning ch, dc in 3^rd ch of turning ch, turn.

Repeat rows 2-3 for pattern.

Easy huh? When it’s as long as you want it, slip or whip stitch the ends together and voila! A simple, yet fancy looking infinity scarf.

Enjoy!

Tamsin Juby

BF Crochet Creations

PS: Share! Share the pattern, share your finished object, make the world a brighter place! But please, if someone asks where you got the pattern, tell them it was from me, or better still, send them here! (but you don't have to, I'm not pimping my blog or anything. ;) ) I like thinking of myself as a skinny Santa Claus gifting the world with probably the only talent I have. Thank you kindly.

PPS: Yes, the “thank you kindly” means I’m Canadian eh.

What to make, what to make, what to make

So I have got A LOT of chunky/bulky weight yarn in my stash. Beautiful, soft boucles in various colors, some thick acrylics and a few odds and ends. I've been searching like crazy for just the right patterns and frankly it's making me a little crazy because I can't find just the right pattern. I want a sweater type garment. Something with a little flare and definitely no turtle or high neck! My neck is only two inches long and anything high necked makes me look funny. So since I can't find what I want even though I'm not entirely sure what it is I'm looking for, I'm going to design my own.

First off. I want to use my bulky yarn. I can't call it chunky because that leads to my darling brother making jokes about alpaca soup as I found out the hard way. :) But since I don't want the sweater to be overly thick I'm going to use a big hook.  Probably M or bigger. With a half double crochet stitch that should make even bulky yarn lacy.

Second, I want an asymmetrical hem. So out comes the scrap paper. 

There. That's the hem I want. 

Now the bodice.... Hmmm.... Something not to heavy. Time to pull out my crochet bible. 

500 different stitch patterns. It's wonderful, isn't it?

So let's try something fairly open.... This one.

Third, make a swatch. This will tell me how many stitches and rows in a four by four swatch.

Now the fun part. Pull out my horribly colored dressmaker's mannequin and take some measurements.

With all this information I'm ready to start. I know right? All this work before I even start?! Custom design isn't easy.  Calculator, paper, pencil. Time to do some math.

Tune in next time to see how all this works out. I haven't a clue so it could be amusing. 

Today I'm going to share some of my favorite sites for on-line shopping, places I get my supplies that have excellent service and reasonable prices. I don't mind paying for what I want but some places just aren't worth the shipping expense to receive the items.

Ice Yarns

They're in Turkey but anytime I order, I have it shipped DHL whose price is more than reasonable considering I get the product in three days. From Turkey. I know right? I order from the U.S.A. and it takes two weeks to clear customs. But three days from Turkey. Weird.

Some examples of yarns I received from Ice Yarns

Sign up for the newsletter. They have Tuesday Promotions and Bargain sales that have UNREAL pricing. I highly recommend buying from these sales and you'll get your yarn way cheaper than anywhere else, even with the shipping costs.


www.iceyarns.com/


Expression Fiber Arts

Chandi is hilarious! She is also extremely enthusiastic about her product and her craft. She is in Alaska and product has to travel from there to California before proceeding to Canada (Doh! Don't they know Canada is in between?) so be prepared for it to take awhile. Patience! Customs also seems to like to really examine her packages but they do finally arrive with "yummy goodies" as Chandi would say.

This is Autumn and I both modelling the shawl I made with the Yak/silk blend in Calico that I purchased from the May yarn club Chandi runs. Surprise yarns! What fun!!!!


www.expressionfiberarts.com/


Urban Yarns, Vancouver

These are the people who sold me my first Mini Maiden yarn and started my obsession. Nice people to deal with, their packages are wrapped in tissue paper and a personal card that's a joy to receive, just like a parcel at Christmas! I live in Eastern Ontario and it only takes three days for parcels to arrive. That's pretty efficient. Their pricing is right on target and their selection is really good. If you order something online and they've run out, they will call you to see if there's a substitution you'd like just so they can get the package on the way quickly. Super nice people to deal with.

www.urbanyarns.com/

Colorsong Yarns

They carry Handmaiden/Fleece Artist yarn only but...they have clearance sales. Woohoo! Bob and Nancy are great to deal with and they have a HUGE selection of my favorite yarns. They also have discount codes for various knit and crochet alongs on Ravelry which can also help save money. Again, they ship from the states so it can take up to three weeks to arrive, depending on how long customs holds up the package, but that is not a fault of the company. I think border services just don't like the word "yarn" on the package. It seems to make them suspicious for some reason. WARNING: If you order over $100 in product, you will have to pay duties and taxes when the package arrives. Better to keep your spending under this threshold or it'll hurt.

Yarn and sliver I purchased from Colorsong Yarn







colorsongyarn.com/


Mr Yarn

I have one thing to say....BULK DISCOUNT!!!!! That takes me to my happy place. Add their more than reasonable shipping and the fact that they seem to be the only people who can get across the border quickly ( must be the Mr that gets them through fast :) ) and they are one of my go-to places to shop. They have a nice selection and their stock is always rotating so check back often.

www.mryarn.com/

So these are my standard places for now, but I'm always shopping around to find other suppliers with unique items. Where are your go-to places for supplies?